


Faded Grace

by RemindMeWhoIAm



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Torture, Self-Esteem Issues, Slice of Life, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemindMeWhoIAm/pseuds/RemindMeWhoIAm
Summary: When Hancock doubts his worth, Nora opens up about Nate.





	Faded Grace

**Author's Note:**

> The art is a portrait of Nora that the lovely Sunsolace drew for me - go read her fics and check out her art because it is all AMAZING! https://elu-art.tumblr.com/ https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsolace/pseuds/sunsolace
> 
> Many thanks to Ariejul for once again helping me with the title for this piece.

    It was dead silent when Hancock woke with a small jolt.  He gripped the quilt twisted around his waist and blinked against the darkness.  The windows were shuttered, the only light in the room poking through the cracks at random spots.  It was raining outside, a steady patter on the metal roof that drowned out the usual ambient noises of a sleeping settlement.

    Next to him, Nora moved.  Hancock froze, afraid for a moment that he’d woken her.  She rolled, pulling on the quilt, so he shifted and let her take the slack as she settled, still fast asleep.  He wanted to lie back down and pull her close, bury his face in her disheveled hair and breathe in the smell of dirt and gunpowder on her skin, but his heart was still doing awkward skips and he knew his jitters would wake her.

    Carefully, he extracted himself from the blanket and slipped out of bed, squeezing through the cracked doorway so the rusty hinges didn’t squeak.  The house was quiet, settled, everyone peacefully asleep. Everyone but him.

  He peered into Shaun’s room just to check, but the boy was spread across the bed in a tangle of gangly teenage limbs and blankets, snoring into his pillow with Dogmeat draped over his legs.  The mutt’s ears twitched and he opened an eye to stare at Hancock. When he didn’t say anything, Dogmeat sighed and stretched, then dozed off again.

    Anne’s room was similarly still and peaceful, Codsworth hovering in power-save mode in the corner next to her bed.  He could only see the top of her head poking out of the blanket, brown curls sticking up in every direction, but he knew Codsworth would react the second something went wrong.

    He wandered into the living room, fingers twitching.  This was one of those nights when, before the three peaceful sleepers in the house had bopped into his life, he’d have eased his anxiety with a shooter or needle, but he and Nora had gone clean months ago and he wasn’t going to let one stupid nightmare ruin all that work.

    He sighed and settled for a cigarette, huddling in a rickety chair on the porch, the rain still falling steadily.  He could see several other houses from his spot, all shuttered and dark, their inhabitants warm and secure inside. The cherry red tip of his cigarette bloomed bright as he sucked in smoke, willing the nicotine to calm his jittering nerves.

    The smoke helped, but when he shuffled back inside, he was still too restless to climb into bed, so he flopped onto the couch and stretched out.  He cast around for something to occupy him, his gaze finally landing on the big leather album on the coffee table.

    Shaun liked to pull Nora’s old album out of the floor safe when he was bored; sometimes he asked endless questions about the places and people in the photos, other times he just studied them intently, as if there was some wisdom to be found in depictions of his mother’s long-lost life.  Hancock usually avoided it.

    The album had been left open to a spread of what looked like some formal affair; the colors were oddly bright, as if Nora had kept them put away where they couldn’t fade as easily.  Hancock sat up and pulled the album closer, oddly intrigued.

    It was a party of some sort, judging by the glitzy dress and spiffy uniforms - men in crisp military jackets with all manner of shiny accoutrements pinned on, women in long gowns and heavy makeup.  He spotted Nora easily, her distinctive red curls and bright gray eyes the same even two hundred years later.

     She was looking away from the camera, arm looped through the bent elbow of a broad man Hancock recognized as Nate Wilson.  She looked strange to his eyes, the Nora he knew but also _different_ \- freckles covered by makeup, hair hanging in shiny waves instead of falling loose from a hasty braid or bun, bare arms pale and full.  There were none of the scars he touched at night - the one that bisected her right eyebrow, the bullet hole just over her collarbone. Her cheeks were pink but not from sunburn and her figure was softer, lacking the hard muscle he knew.

    Her smile, though, was wide and sweet, that beautiful beam he didn’t see often, and it was directed straight at her husband.

    He stared, a strange ache in his gut.  He’d never loved anything the way he loved that smile, and yet, seeing it there, two hundred-odd years old, wasn’t the comfort it usually was.

    What had Nate said to her that made her smile so much?  What was he saying that captured her attention so completely even with a camera in their faces?

    Hancock sighed and sat back, rubbing his hand over his face.  His gnarled, scarred hand over his ruined, noseless face.

    “What are you doing up?”

    He started, heart jumping into his throat.  Nora padded quietly across the rug, stifling a yawn.  She flopped onto the couch next to him and glanced at the album.

    “That thing again?”

    “Shaun left it out.”

    She grimaced, leaning forward to study the pictures.  

    “My favorite,” she said dully, and flipped the album closed. “Come on back to bed.”

    “I thought you looked good,” Hancock replied, “Seemed happy and all.”

    “Looked, seemed,” Nora replied, “Key words.”

    “You weren't happy with him?”

    Nora gave him a look he pretended not to notice. “What kind of question is that?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “John.”

    “I'm just curious.”

    Nora rolled her eyes and sat forward, flipping the album back open.  She yanked the photo he'd been looking at out of the little paper frame and held it to him, pointing at Nate’s chest.  Hancock stared in confusion for a moment before he realized she was pointing at one of the medals on Nate's chest - he had several, because of course he did - and frowning.

    “Armed Forces Award for Exceptional Service,” she said.  There was a dark undercut to her voice, a toxicity that made him flinch. “This was the award ceremony.”

    Hancock stared.  The medal was round and gold, hanging from a dark blue ribbon and flanked by gilded leaves.  There was engraved writing on it but he couldn't read what it said.

    “You wanna know how he got it?”

    Hancock felt like he'd waded into dark water only to find he suddenly couldn't feel the bottom anymore.  Nora was practically glaring at him.

    “Torture.”

    Silence followed this statement.  Hancock looked over to find her gray eyes had gone cold and hard.

    “What?”

    “He started out in a hospital up in Canada,” she said, “Then Intelligence got a hold of him.   _Advanced interrogation techniques,_ they called it.”

    Hancock sat there, staring at the photo as his insides curled.  He hadn't expected things to go so sour just because he'd had a nightmare and gotten stupidly curious.

    “He didn't want to.  He pushed back. But they made all kinds of threats.  Me, his parents, his little brother. He gave in.”

    Hancock nodded slowly. “You didn't know.”

    “Not until after I had Shaun,” she said.  The venom had dropped out of her voice and she just sounded tired now.

    “I was going through our paperwork to fill out the Vault Tec application and they'd left it on there that he spent time with Intelligence.  When I thought he was in Canada fixing up his fellow soldiers, he was actually in China working over POWs.”

    Hancock let out a breath and took the photo from her, closing it back up in the album.

    “Look, love, I didn't mean to drag up old memories…”

    “I know you didn't,” she said, “When I asked Nate about it, he lied to me at first.  But it came out eventually.”

    Hancock put his arm over her shoulders and pulled her in, slotting her small form against his side.  She let him, leaning her head on his chest.

    “I took the baby and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for two weeks,” she said, “I told them Nate needed space for a while to adjust to some new medication.”

    “But you went back to him.”  It was a statement of fact; he knew they'd been together when the bombs fell, knew she'd spent many months wearing their wedding bands on a chain around her neck.

    Nora nodded. “It wasn't his fault.  He didn't even want to be a soldier in the first place.  But I was already on a government shit list somewhere and so was my family, so it didn't take much to scare him into compliance.”

    She shifted suddenly, sitting up and rolling so she was straddling his lap, hands on his cheeks, eyes locked.

    “I don't like it when you compare yourself to him,” she said firmly, “He wasn't perfect.  Our marriage wasn’t perfect. But I loved him and I love you, too.”

    “Sunshine..”

    She put a finger over his mouth and shook her head. “Unless the next words out of your mouth are, ‘you’re right, Nora, I was being a self-deprecating bonehead and I’m sorry’, I don’t want to hear it.”

    He waited, staring her down, and at last she moved her fingers.

    “I’m sorry.”

    She gave him a satisfied smirk as he ran his hands up her thighs and over her hips.

    “I’m sorry you left your ribs open.”

    “What -”

    He dug his fingertips into her ribcage, smirking as she seized and shrieked, thrashing to get away from his tickling.

    “John!” she yelped, attempting to wiggle away. “John, you’re going to wake Annie -”

    “I’m not the one screeching,” he shot back, fingers dancing along her sides as she squirmed and tried to push him away. “ _You’re_ going to wake Annie.”

    “Hancock, you ass,” she snapped, though she was grinning. “Stop it.  Don’t.”

    “Don’t what?”

    “Hanco - ah!”

    She fell to the side, wiggling away from him with scandalized squeals.  He leaned over and grabbed her wrists, pinning them against the couch.

    “Kiss me, then.”

    Before she could say anything, Codsworth whirled into the living room, buzzsaw held aloft.

    “Miss Nora, are you - oh.”

    “I’m fine, Codsworth,” Nora replied, not breaking eye contact with Hancock. “Go back to sleep.”

    Codsworth sniffed and muttered something to himself, but drifted away and back into the bedroom with Anne.  Hancock leaned closer and Nora kissed him, petite frame melting into the cushions.

    “I love you.”

    “I love you, too."

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/163391861@N04/40705532673/in/dateposted-public/)


End file.
